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The Green Hills o' Somerset

Introduction

Eric Coates set several lyrics by Frederic Edward Weatherly, who was a barrister as well as one of the most prolific and successful writers of ballad lyrics. Coates recalled how, as a young man, he sought a lyric from Weatherly and visited him at his London residence in Woburn Place: “He was one of the smallest men I had met and, for such a remarkably gifted man, strangely enough, was the possessor of a small head … I noticed on his desk two piles of papers, the one on the right looked like lyrics and the one on his left had the appearance of legal documents. I was right in both cases, for during the conversation which followed he told me he wrote poems while working out difficult problems of law”.

Recordings

'Other singers over recent decades have given the songs an airing from time to time, but Thomas Allen is the very man to do it' (Gramophone)'With piano-playing by that most sensitive of accompanists, Malcolm Martineau, Sir Thomas Allen brings high art to these songs … with an affectio ...» More

Details

Oh the green hills o’ Somerset Go rolling to the shore; ’Twas there we said that we’d get wed, When spring came round once more. ’Twas there we kissed and said goodbye Beside the kirkyard wall, And the song the blackbird sang to us Was the sweetest song of all.

Oh the green hills o’ Somerset Go rolling to the sea, And still today the violets Are blooming there for me. The shadows kiss the waving grass, Beside the kirkyard wall, But the song the blackbird sings to me Is the saddest song of all.